Children at a community health event in Timor Leste, one of the locations where Health Alliance International has maternal-child health programs. Photo credit: Jessica Dyer (MPH '15), George Povey Fellow.

Department News

This World AIDS Day, we applaud gains against the world HIV/AIDS epidemic and optimistically embark upon a new vaccine trial. But we also recognize our work is far from done especially when it comes to young people. Without a significant global transformation in priorities and resources towards adolescents, we leave them at risk of dying from a preventable and treatable disease.

Jared Baeten, MD, PhD, current Vice Chair of the Department of Global Health, has accepted the position of Director of the University of Washington/Fred Hutch Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) starting January 1, 2017. After 30 years as CFAR Director, King Holmes will transition to a Co-Director role and will remain an active member of the CFAR Leadership Team.

In the decades since the success of the 1959 Cuban Revolution, that small island has gained a global reputation for its pioneering health system. Although Cuba’s GDP is only a fraction of that of the U.S., the island has a lower infant mortality rate and has among the highest life expectancies and doctor-patient ratios in the world. What factors account for the success of medicine and public health in Cuba?

The International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH), based in the University of Washington School of Public Health’s Department of Global Health, was recently awarded $20.1 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) for the first of five years of funding.

Students of the University of Washington Department of Global Health's PhD in Metrics and Implementation Science are the first class of global health practitioners to combine the study of effective programming with the science of proper implementation.

In the Media

The U.S. death rate is on the rise for the first time in more than 15 years, with life expectancy for a baby born in 2015 dropping slightly, the government reported Thursday.

In a trend that's worrying experts, the nation's death rate — or the number of deaths for every 100,000 U.S. residents — rose 1.2 percent from 2014 to last year, the first noteworthy uptick since 1999.

Despite decades of warnings, obesity poses a growing problem worldwide. Once it was thought to afflict just affluent countries, where excess can easily become a way of life. In reality, obesity is a global issue affecting poorer countries on a grand scale. While there has been progress in reducing hunger globally, the next stage doesn’t look too promising.

As 1400 health experts, academics and innovators from around the world gathered at the Qatar National Convention Center to highlight world health issues under the platform of the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), the focus was on working together to improve existing healthcare facilities.

Washington state’s global health community is a recognized leader in the fight against many diseases of poverty including HIV/AIDS. No question about that. The question is whether our region’s leadership, the way we choose to fight the pandemic, is actually doing more for us than the people we claim to be helping.